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Gardeners World - Season 59 - Episode 02
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00:11Are you coming? Come on then.
00:17Come on then.
00:25Come on then.
00:26Come on then.
00:28Good boy, Ivar. Good boy.
00:42Hello, welcome to Gardener's World, and welcome to a lovely spring day here at Longmeadow,
00:47and a brand new piece of the garden.
00:50This used to be one side of the copse, and I planted it over 30 years ago from hazelnuts that
00:57I gathered.
00:58I planted some trees in here and underplanted it with all the lovely primroses and bluebells that you get in
01:03coppice woodland.
01:04But the trees grew very big, and they sucked all the moisture from the soil, blocked all the light, and
01:11for the last five years it really hasn't been very good on any level.
01:15But no longer, because I have begun the transformation into making this area into a really beautiful woodland garden.
01:23the woodland garden.
01:46is shade of some sort but shade is not a problem you will find plants that will thrive in almost
01:54every variation of the shade theme whoa hang on a minute that's ned ned what are you doing
02:02come on come here okay good boy would you like a little something would that make you feel better
02:10now please don't bark when we're filming right what i'm going to plant today are two modest plants
02:19but they are charming they all grow in shade and they spread really easily but not out of control
02:26so what's not to like now first one is tiarella this is tiarella spring symphony and tiarella has
02:35these tiny white little starbursts of flower carried on long stems and flower from now through till may
02:42and they are happiest with dappled shade that doesn't dry out too much this is telema telema grandiflora
02:52and you can see the foliage is quite similar but the flowers are rather different because they are
02:57born on long thin stems but they're pale primrose yellow tiny little bells i love them they'll last
03:03into june and they are the perfect ground cover woodland plant that also looks really good they're
03:10not just filling a space they're performing as well both these plants come from the damp woodlands or
03:18forest of the west of america so don't stick it in very dry shade
03:30it's gardening convention that plants look better placed in odd numbers than even if you plant in
03:38threes five sevens even nines it tends to look more natural than if you do it in twos or fours
03:45or sixes
03:45so i tend to plant in triangles in groups of three
03:53if you want a mass defect of any kind it's nearly always more economic and more successful to buy lots
04:00of small plants than a few really big ones small plants establish much more easily and they're much
04:16cheaper although i absolutely love the creativity of making a new garden the thing i love most in the
04:24world is actually planting on a spring day with the sun shining the birds are selling putting plants in
04:32the ground knowing that they're going to grow that sense of hope and satisfaction all comes together
04:38and it's just as joyous now as it ever has been in my life now we're going to visit mary
04:44keen now mary
04:45keen over a long period of time has been one of our our best known garden designers and writers
04:52and she's made gardens all over the world but joe has been to see her in her own garden at
04:58home
05:02when i think of gardening royalty mary keen is right up there and what sets her apart
05:08is her instinct for planting
05:13from grand british gardens to designs across the world mary's work is about atmosphere and emotion
05:20and she designs gardens that are to be loved lived in and feel truly alive but down this path is
05:28something even more personal it's her own sanctuary and it's not somewhere that she shares very often so
05:35this is a real treat
05:42so mary you design gardens for oh the rich and famous royalty some very high profile clients
05:50quite high profile i'm not allowed to talk about any of them i know we're not going to talk about
05:54any of them but what i'm interested in is how different it is designing their gardens and designing
06:01your own garden it's completely different i like small flowered plants that you see through and that
06:07are ephemeral i'm not doing display i'm doing atmosphere and it's for me to potter and wander about
06:14in the morning in the evening and in the middle of the day it's just a lovely place to be
06:19not a place
06:20to look at not a place to show off and the actual layout did you draw it out on piece
06:25of paper no i
06:26didn't it's two rectangles like two tennis courts end on end and i knew i wanted some flower beds for
06:33conventional plants and then i wanted two-thirds which we're in now to be wild with wildflowers all year
06:42and i made this s line of beauty path through it to make the garden seem longer and more mysterious
06:50if you've got a small garden you want to be able to walk around it and to feel like a
06:54sort of adventure
07:00oh this is energizing mary i've got to say what style of planting would you call this border then
07:06mixed can we call it mixed it sounds a bit boring it's got lots of stuff in like snowdrops and
07:12hellebores
07:12underneath so it goes on all the time and then these sort of bursts of color like the henry lily
07:19and the
07:20agapanthus don't ask me i think it's a headborne hybrid but it's just a good dark form yeah i love
07:26the
07:26orange some people don't like orange i i love orange i love it there really is a lot to see
07:32because you're planting in
07:33small groups here like you said not large brush strokes no and it's got a sort of wild feel and
07:39the more you look the more you see you could stand here for hours and just look at the detail
07:47a plants woman at her core mary has filled her garden with plants that bring her joy not as you
07:54might expect in the usual arrangements of threes or fives more like an artist playing with color on a canvas
08:04mary's really got me thinking because i've been reticent to use purple foliage plants in my garden
08:11mainly going for greens but she inherited that purple berberis which is on the boundary and she's
08:17picked it up in colors and stems of other plants like the thalictrum there has got dark stems we've
08:24got the hollyhock with those purple flowers really deep colors and over here we've got the foliage of the
08:30dahlias and that red sanguisorba in the back there as well and it's really got me thinking it has a
08:36lovely depth to the planting color-wise and a nice rhythm as well might have to use it
08:50so this border got a name well that border beyond that we've just looked at is wild and high and
08:58shrubby and this one is the transition between wild and high and shrubby not totally working
09:05and a much more gardened flowery look against the wall so that's the floweriest traddest bed
09:12catchy names you got there for them i love the hollyhocks i love the height because a lot of
09:19people think oh tall plants you've got to put them at the back of the border but you're bringing them
09:22to
09:22the foreground and and you're looking through them well i love the looking through tall plants that's
09:27my aim always to look through i love this euphorbia it's segreana what is it you love about euphorbias
09:36mary oh well i like their greenness you like euphorbias too don't you love them i love their
09:43leaves i love the fact that they perform all year it's the zinginess isn't it they say they set off
09:49other plants in the garden so well and the dianthus carthusian aurum that is my favorite plant
09:56your favorite plant of all time i've got a lot of favorite plants but that is currently my favorite
10:02plant yeah okay yeah desert island plants desert island i'm allowed eight no that's records okay
10:09no but it's fabulous thing about it is it grows in shade it grows in gravel it grows in the
10:14border
10:14and it flowers for a long long time i mean it's just a brilliant brilliant airy graceful lovely plant
10:26as well as being a great designer she obviously loves her plants too does mary because look from
10:32the front of the garden all you see is plants you've got an apple tree with planting all the way
10:37around it
10:37no voids whatsoever and before i came i thought oh there's going to be some unusual stuff some rare
10:43things i better gem up a little bit but actually what's lovely is they're mainly cottage garden style
10:49plants and things that we can all get our hands on nurseries and garden centers things like the pinks
10:56the oregano there we've got crocosmere here peonies iris fennel agapanthus
11:05and it's all put together so effortlessly too
11:12this is idyllic this courtyard it's beautiful well i rather love it because it's got a lot of
11:17rarities you said there weren't any rarities in the rest of the garden this is the rarity corner here
11:23well i can see this is more unusual it's more exotic yeah i like a challenge i've got the fuchsia
11:28climbing lady boothby that's lovely uh melianthus which joe likes i like well i think he looks great
11:35there yeah i think it's lovely actually and what about the one by the door over there oh that's
11:40begonia albopictorosia it'll stay out all summer and then it'll go in the kitchen in the winter so of
11:48all the gardens that you've created how does this one rate when people ask me what's my favorite garden
11:54i always say mine of course and they're quite surprised but of course it's your isn't yours
12:00your favorite garden most definitely because that's where you can garden and that's what we
12:04want to do it just is the place where i feel completely at home and myself the passion comes
12:12across from you so strongly oh joe thank you so much this has been amazing seeing it was lovely
12:19having you here thank you for coming thanks for inviting us
12:40come on
12:51many many years ago i visited mary keen's previous garden in berkshire it was wonderful
12:57and she was the very first person to come and see my garden in london 43 years ago and she
13:04wrote an
13:05article about it and arguably started my career as a garden writer and broadcaster so it's fascinating to
13:12see her garden now now now i'm just gathering one or two of these scented leaf pelargoniums which i'm
13:19going to take down to the end because it's time to give them a bit of attention
13:30come on panty boy hot panty boy
13:39the thing about these scented leaf pelargoniums is obviously as the name suggests their fragrance now
13:47this is tormentosum and you rub the leaf and it releases this strong odor of peppermint it's really
13:55powerful now this is a new variety called torrento which rather weirdly smells of those little cola sweets
14:05it is slightly weird i have to confess but interesting and there are lots and lots of fragrances
14:12from the slightly weird to the absolutely delicious but whatever type of pelargonium
14:19you have now is the time to get them ready for spring
14:27this is a much more familiar zonal pelargonium it comes from south africa and rather than these
14:35relatively compact plants with big flowers when you see them growing wild they are they can be big
14:42shrubs big woody shrubs sort of six foot tall with smaller flowers which
14:49are then pruned by fire but from it they regrow and i don't necessarily suggest getting a blowtorch
14:56to prune this but prune it you must if you don't want it to get really leggy these have been
15:02in the
15:03greenhouse all winter so they've flowered all winter however you've got to be bold and cut them off now
15:09or else you won't have any in the summer it's exhausted and it needs a rest so if we take
15:15off those
15:15flowers and cut back refresh the compost water it feed it we'll get vigorous new growth and that will
15:23give us a really good display later on in summer you can cut these really hard or if you like
15:29a little
15:30bit of legginess and i do then you include that so what i'm going to do is just cut here
15:36which leaves a
15:37bit of stem and then here and that can come off there now this one the one that smells of
15:53cola bottles
15:54i'm going to be much more ruthless
15:58take that off that there now can you see there is new growth right at the base and that's where
16:06i'm
16:06going back to now that is radical but because it's a young plant i'm doing that to really encourage
16:15a fresh flush of growth from the base and finally this one tormentosum i like the way that it spills
16:24down i don't really want to reduce this at all all i'm going to do is take off any spent
16:30leaves
16:33however this one here this zonal pelargonium needs repotting and i'll show you how to do that so i'm
16:39going to take it out of the pot like this
16:46and what i'm going to do is take off the bottom third so we're taking off quite a lot of
16:52the compost
16:57there i've put the crocks back in the bottom
17:04and i've got some fresh compost here now this is a wood-based compost a little bit of garden compost
17:11added and quite a lot of grit
17:15just look at the roots on that great india
17:28and i'm going to wiggle it to work
17:31the soil around the roots and then address that with some grit which just makes it look better
17:40give it a drink but make sure it drains thoroughly
17:48and then feed it liquid seaweed once a week and you should start to see healthy new growth
17:54and keep feeding it until it starts flowering
17:59i will go through all the pelargoniums particularly the zonal ones
18:02and set them up for fresh growth and of course a really fresh good display in the summer months
18:14now last september we went to visit karim habibi in his nursery in kent
18:20and his incredible collection of heritage apples
18:31we have 700 varieties of apples what i'm doing is actually preserving lots of the old varieties
18:37it's important that these are available for people to grow in their gardens because they're
18:42not available in shops and people forget what very nice heirloom varieties taste like
18:48each apple is like rehearing a song you've not heard for a while
18:51because i'll instantly remember the other times i've tried the apple
18:56so i'm quite passionate to keep these apples going
19:00i'm very glad when people do come to the nursery try an apple for the first time and they say
19:05goodness
19:05i never knew apples could taste like this
19:13this is sweet society it's a lovely dessert apple with quite intense flavor quite crisp as well
19:25this is jumbo one of my favorite cooking apples and it cooks down to a lovely apple sauce very very
19:30easily
19:36this is captain kidd a lovely sweet apple with a pear drops flavor
19:45caring for all these trees is a huge operation i'll be producing 7 000 or so new trees a year
19:52i am obsessed with the apples i'm obsessed with looking after fruit trees
19:57and maintaining the collection it is a sort of labor of love
20:03right now we're amongst the mother trees so there's about a thousand trees here and every single
20:08tree is actually a different variety and that's essential to have so that i can harvest cyanwood and
20:14cyanwood is essentially new growth on that tree which i can use for cloning
20:19just above each leaf stalk there is a bud and each one of these buds has the potential to produce
20:26a new
20:26tree if you look at older growth on a tree those active buds aren't there so that's why you can't
20:31use older wood and you need new growth
20:36so right now i'm taking the leaves off the cyanwood so that it doesn't actually dry out i'll also
20:44take the top off because that is actually too thin to work with
20:48so now that's ready and the next stage is to graft this onto some rootstock
20:59right now we're amongst the rootstocks the rootstock obviously determines the vigor of the tree
21:05and so every apple tree that is in this country is actually made in this way where it's actually
21:12made up of two parts the rootstock and the cyan which is above that and you can usually see the
21:17graft
21:17union where it's actually going to have different bark it's going to look quite different so that's
21:22the part where you know that any flowers on that top part of the tree will produce let's say your
21:28bramleys or your cox's orange pippins so this cyanwood that i collected from the mother tree i'm going to
21:34graft this onto this rootstock right here using a technique called chip budding i'm making a shallow cut
21:41cut on the cyanwood the next stage is to make the exact same incision on the rootstock
21:55i'll then tape this up
22:02and that's now done so that bud that is now on there that will fuse to the rootstock and next
22:09year in next
22:09season's growth that will grow into a one-year maiden so it might put five six foot of growth on
22:22so every summer i'll be out here chip budding in late july through till august it's a lot of work
22:28i will probably be spending the best part of 10 12 hours a day both collecting cyanwood and chip
22:33budding i'll probably aim to do 500 of these a day i'll work well into the night some nights with
22:40head torch on and that's just because there is a shortish period where you have to get quite a lot
22:46of work done once you grow an old variety like ashmead's kernel for example it's such an unforgettable
22:56variety that you become quite excited and passionate about preserving more and more old varieties because
23:03you realize that these apples are some of the best fruits in the world you can go back through
23:09time and see how important a certain apple was to a certain area because that apple is cloned
23:15you can actually taste exactly what people were tasting sort of 200 300 400 years ago
23:22and you can't really do that with a lot of other fruits
23:27in the early 90s when my parents started things here britain was actually losing lots of its old
23:34orchards my parents were quite passionate about actually sourcing old material and creating a
23:40collection things like margill or pitmast and pineapple these old varieties which were such lovely
23:47apples to actually grow and try yourself they really wanted you know everyone to have that experience
23:56i really wanted to experiment and try and create my own varieties eventually i persuaded my dad to
24:04let me have a sort of small nook of the nursery where i actually sort of planted seedling varieties
24:10grafted those out and eventually i have actually produced some of my own varieties unfortunately my
24:16father passed away before trying any of the seedling apples and one of the first apples which was an
24:21exceptional apple i've actually now named that variety after my father i've called it hamid's red
24:27pippin i think he would have been very interested to try that it's quite sad he never did but it's
24:33it's
24:33very nice that every time i see that apple to sort of think of my dad
24:40right now we're amongst the maidens in the nursery to get to the point where your one-year-old tree
24:46is going to
24:46start to thrive and produce apples firstly you want to plant the tree in the winter time and let the
24:52tree
24:52establish so that means plant the tree well so the roots are happy and water the tree quite a lot
24:57so in that very first winter time whilst it's dormant you probably want to cut some branches off lower
25:03down so these lower branches in the long term are not going to be very useful perhaps if you are
25:08going
25:08to sort of try and train in espalier step over but for a freestanding tree which generally is what most
25:14people plant you really want a clear trunk lower down so that maintenance is quite easy and then at
25:19the top of the tree most people actually want quite a sort of three-dimensional crown so imagine a goblet
25:24shaped tree and those are where you want your fruit so that the tree is able to sort of hold
25:30itself
25:30up whilst carrying heavy fruits you can essentially choose where you want the crown of the tree to be
25:35by cutting the leader off at a certain point because what happens is if you cut the leader off
25:40all the buds below the certain point where you cut the tree they're going to compete for apical
25:46dominance which means they're going to try and grow as much as they can so you end up with a
25:51large sort of
25:52cluster of branches coming out and from that you can actually select some that will form a balanced
25:59crown of about sort of four branches five branches i would like to think that in a few hundred years
26:06time people might have a hamid's red pippin tree in their garden and they will look up who was this
26:12person where did this apple come from oh i live in kent oh okay i know where that you know
26:17where that
26:18town is it's something that i'm very fortunate to be able to do and i certainly would love it if
26:25one day
26:25one of my children wants to continue this i can't think of anything nicer than working alongside
26:31one of them or all of them if they all want to join in so many apples yummy
26:52when i planted this orchard so many years ago i carefully hunted out and chose heritage local
27:00varieties i wanted to build up something that could only represent this area so therefore of course i
27:06really admire what kareem is doing and he's doing it so well it wouldn't be marvelous if his children
27:12carried that on his grandchildren what a fantastic project now it's time to visit one of your gardens
27:20we're going down to dorset to visit the garden of james baker hello i'm james off of the traitors
27:29welcome to weymouth i do this for a living gardening so i thought i'd show you my humble abode this
27:35is like a
27:35patio area obviously it's a bit early in the year but your tulips are coming up now it's constantly
27:40experimenting daily i might move something around whatever tickles my fancy that's part of the fun
27:45of gardening you know you're never right and you're never wrong everyone's a busker me included
27:52structurally functional down the middle i have a family i don't have any please keep off the grass
27:57business i just like to fill the beds with everything just go wild and i like to let the periwinkle
28:03cascade down a bit like a waterfall the hebe just goes wild and what i love about this you get
28:09the
28:09purple and i've got a climbing rose that comes through and the pink and purple intertwine beautiful
28:15now this is my pièce de résistance my favorite bit of the garden this pear tree so basically this pear
28:21tree was swamped with ivy and it was on its last legs i had one little pear on it we
28:25replanted that seed
28:26and that is growing down there that scraping sound you hear in the background is uh my son i don't
28:33know hello rake up the leaves good man and i let the kids do what i used to do in
28:37my granddad's garden
28:38is just learn on the spot watch learn experiment trial and error my great granddad was an incredible
28:44gardener lived to 102. uh so you know there's something to be said to be outdoors you know breathing
28:50in the uh it's good for the soul gardening master and apprentice i think you're the master there in
28:56this area i'm gonna put onions down here carrots in the front row radishes lettuce plants uh potentially
29:05a cucumber plant running up that you've got the job now it's yours so this little area i salvaged
29:12what i could from the wreckage of a hedgerow this bay was put in and it was a twig when
29:16we cut it back
29:17but it's you know been shaped now no edward scissorhands but you know good enough the little
29:22hack i've got is sedum stone crop it's good ground cover it's great weed suppressor this came from one
29:28clipping i got which is incredible they're up there with periwinkle for me for beautiful almost like
29:32forest floor carpet coverage here's my bravery award for gardening this aeonium was left out all year
29:41kind of as an experiment really it was a success story so i will be trying that again i hate
29:45to
29:45chatter the illusion it is trial and error gardening gardening adds years to your life and life to your
29:51years and that is like the best quote i think i've ever heard i want that on a t-shirt
29:55that's my garden
29:57thank you for watching
30:24i like the fact that james's son was growing vegetables
30:30well it's time that i started to sow some vegetables too long meadow had such a soaking
30:36all winter now the raised beds make a difference and actually now they're not too bad they're ready
30:42the rule of thumb if you're sowing seeds or indeed planting anything out is if the soil feels cold to
30:49your hand don't do it but if it doesn't feel cold doesn't have to feel warm it just doesn't feel
30:53cold
30:54then you're away and you can get going and what i'm actually going to put in here is for me
30:59a bit
31:00unusual this is garlic and nine years out of ten i plant garlic directly into the bed usually in
31:10september but certainly no later than october but i couldn't get the bulbs to plant until october late
31:17october and by then the ground was too wet so what i did is i planted them up into these
31:23plugs
31:23i bought them on in the greenhouse for about the first month and then they've been outside all winter
31:28because for garlic to form cloves rather than just a single bulb it needs a period of cold weather
31:41if you've planted bulbs and they've rotted in the wet or if you've just got ground that stays wet all
31:46winter this system of planting the garlic in deep plugs or three inch pots and then planting out when
31:52the ground is ready i think can work very well now last august carol went to rhs rosemore
32:09to see their vegetable garden and potager and of course i'm sure they produce delicious food
32:15and i'm pretty sure that all of it gets eaten but it also looks fantastic
32:26as far as i'm concerned nothing beats growing your own fruit and veg and eating it
32:33here there's so much to inspire you to grow your own
32:41this is a huge space the sort we might all dream of mind you with a veg garden this big
32:47we'd have to
32:48feed the whole street there are so many ideas here we can take away and use in any size garden
32:54or even
32:56without one there are examples all around of veg herbs and fruit growing in containers there are
33:03tomatoes chilies aubergines basil parsley an array of herbs and even a glorious apple tree traditionally
33:13in larger gardens fruit and veg are separated from flower borders to be more productive but that's not
33:21practical in smaller spaces so if you want to grow a bit of both and have limited space there's a
33:29perfect
33:31solution well this is another of rosemore's beautiful gardens this one is called the potager there are
33:38vegetables galore here but it has a whole different aesthetic from the vegetable garden in the vegetable
33:45garden everything's grown in serried ranks here everything's grown because it looks beautiful next to
33:52its neighbor the whole idea is about design using vegetables ornamentally and making them look utterly beautiful
34:04the overall design in this garden is important it's based on a circle there's a circular herb garden in
34:11the center and around it are arranged four symmetrical beds although everything's edible it's all about what
34:19plants look like together so you've got beautiful chard here with these pink stems but over there another
34:27swiss chard but this time with golden stems with the sunlight streaming through it it's hugely versatile
34:35and what's more you can eat it right the way through the year it'll overwinter wonderfully it's very very hardy
34:43i love the addition of these tagetes all around the edge of this bed there's the tall one here which
34:50is one called cinnamon but the point is it's single which means it's hugely attractive to pollinating insects
34:57and of course that's just what you need to pollinate your beans and lots of your other flowering plants and
35:04then for a bit of drama in the background we've got this amaranth this is one called red army with
35:11these very dark
35:12stems and dark flowers and seed heads amaranth is a wonderful vegetable it's grown all around the world
35:19for its leaves here it's grown both to eat but also decoratively now everything's set against each
35:27other here to give interest in texture and color but also there's height from these beans growing up an
35:34obelisk in the corner and next door to them another vertical emphasis that great big orac
35:40looking gorgeous in seed against the blue sky and then right in the middle these two sentinels
35:48these great big plants of bronze fennel another interesting texture to add to what already exists
35:56right the way through the bed and in fact right the way through the garden
36:02how about this for a novel idea if you've got a fence separating one bit of the garden from the
36:08other
36:08don't just leave it grow something up it grow something like this beautiful plant this is an
36:15ornamental gourd and it's just using the fence as support all along these stems flowers are produced
36:22both male and female and when the bees have moved the pollen onto the female flowers they'll turn into fruit
36:29now on this plant they're ornamental gourds so they're not edible but there are so many members of the
36:36corcorbit family that grow in exactly the same way that are utterly delicious squash and pumpkins for a
36:43start all they need to grow successfully is loads of sun and lots of water beautiful
36:56not only is this garden packed with beautiful vegetables but there are so many fruit trees too and
37:04so many good examples of how to grow them here's a step over apple the whole idea is it makes
37:11a really
37:11really low plant and yet it's extremely productive just look at the apples here and all that happens
37:19is as the apple comes up two big shoots are trained horizontally along wires the wires are just a couple
37:27of feet off the ground and it's tied in and keeps making progress all the time and each time it
37:33sends
37:33out a side shoot that's cut back to a couple of buds which is when it makes these fruiting spurs
37:40and eventually these lovely delicious apples too but another wonderful way of training apples is this
37:48this is an espalier and it's a beautiful example of this technique so here's the central trunk and
37:56this time these branches have been trained out horizontally these ones first obviously the plant
38:03has grown up a couple of feet and then two more are trained out sideways again that happens third one
38:12and probably you'd end up with a fourth one you have here and all the way up you've got this
38:17bountiful
38:18crop of apples so even in a tiny space or on a flat wall or in between two parts of
38:26the garden
38:26you can produce a plant which gives you loads and loads of fruit
38:34throughout the veg garden there are glorious examples of companion planting as here with this
38:40wonderful archway full of fig leaf gourds look at those beautiful fruits but at their feet are growing
38:48antagonities and they are supposed to deter white flies and other kinds of aphys they've got a really
38:55strong pungent smell and they bring in all sorts of pollinating insects the potager and the vegetable
39:03garden show us all that with a little bit of creativity we can put vegetables and flowers together
39:10to produce something which is just as beautiful as any bed or border
39:22so
39:40now here's another change that we made over the winter this is the mound
39:44and for the last six or seven years these have been big beds on either side of the path with
39:52roses and quite big planting but the space was awkward so taking them out and this has been laid
40:02as a terrace here you're raised up i'm looking down on the new woodland garden which is pleasing
40:08and so i'm very happy with the result
40:23this has proved to be the perfect place to keep house plants and they're happy in here for three reasons
40:29the first is the light is good it's bright but it's not glaring it's never very direct sunlight the second
40:38reason is that the temperature in here is pretty constant and house plants like that whereas in a
40:43modern centrally heated house the temperature can fluctuate by 20 degrees and thirdly the reason
40:50why they're happy in here because they're neglected and neglect is the secret of the happy house plant
41:07when i say they thrive on neglect what i mean is is that you can really damage them
41:13by too much of anything too much watering too much feeding too much warmth too much light is going to
41:20do
41:20far more damage to house plants than a bit of benign neglect i'm going to go through each of these
41:27and do what i would do in spring as we enter the growing season i'm going to start with the
41:32cheese
41:32plant because this poor thing is not in a good state look it's fallen completely over it's lost its
41:39support and if i put it on the table for a minute you can see what's happened this here has
41:46broken away
41:46so the first thing to do is to prune it now now is the time to prune a cheese plant
41:54too big reduce it in size if it's damaged take off the damaged part
42:00by and large it's actually not at all unhealthy can you see me through the leaves
42:06it's looking quite happy so the first thing i need to do is to support it
42:12make sure they're strong and make sure they're tied in well when you're tying up any plant always
42:18use soft twine so it doesn't damage the plant
42:24there we go if the leaves get at all dusty just wipe them with a damp cloth with your fingers
42:34just
42:34remove some of the compost maybe the top inch and then top it up so a soil-based compost or
42:42a bark-based
42:43compost with plenty of drainage this just gives it a little bit of extra goodness to kick off this
42:52fresh growing season the next thing to do is to give this a good drink what i have is a
42:59very weak
42:59solution of seaweed feed and i'm going to water that in until it's running out of the bottom
43:06let it be sodden and then let it really drain well
43:12now this spider plant is moderately happy and spider plants are one of the few house plants
43:20actually can be a bit wetter than most because they're very forgiving so if you do over water them
43:25you're unlikely to kill them but once a week is plenty with house plants you may experience little
43:31flies these are fungus gnats and they are living off decaying organic matter in the compost and one
43:40of the reasons why it's decaying is because it's too wet so the quickest way to get rid of it
43:44is take
43:44off the top layer of compost replace it with fresh give it a soak and then only water it again
43:51when it's
43:51bone dry what i'm going to do with this now is give it an immersive soak hold it down until
43:58it stays
43:59under the water can you see the bubbles coming up there it's bubbling like a man who's had jerusalem
44:05artichokes before his bath you've got a good way of watering house plants that have become so dry that
44:13the water just seems to bounce off the top now while that's having a soak i'm going to deal with
44:19the chinese
44:19money plant and what i'm going to do with this is repot it that's pretty firmly in there a little
44:26trick
44:27is to use a cane in the bottom and just push like that now you can see that that is
44:33essentially pot
44:34bound if you can see more roots than compost it needs repotting now i'm going to put it back in
44:40the
44:40same pot rather than putting it in a bigger pot so i'm going to remove some of the existing roots
44:46and
44:46compost and i'm just going to use my fingers i'm just going to scrape away a bit like this
44:53creating room for some fresh compost and therefore fresh roots to grow into
45:00we'll put a little bit of compost in the bottom
45:08push that down in having repotted i will give this a water and a feed let it drain thoroughly and
45:16then
45:16put it back now your best friend with any house plant is this a mister if you're not sure how
45:24much
45:24to water or when to water you can never go wrong by increasing the humidity so place them somewhere
45:32where you can spray them so their leaves are distinctly damp and sometimes running with water
45:36without damaging carpets or curtains or cushions and having watered them if any has accumulated in the
45:44saucer that's beneath them throw that away don't let them sit in the wet and that will do for most
45:51house plants of course it doesn't apply to cacti or succulents which are another whole thing altogether
45:58now the whole point of house plants is that they deliver all the year round
46:05but out in the garden there are some plants that are absolutely of the season and only perform for a
46:12few
46:12brief bright weeks but are really special when they do and we went down to cornwall
46:20to visit a grower of camellias which of course are at their best now
46:24and i think you might truly say that he does love a camellia
46:39i'm described by my missus as a serial obsessive and my current obsessions are camellias
46:50the italians used to call them perfectors there's a perfection in the arrangement of the flower that
46:57is pretty much unrivalled
47:05my name is jim stevens i've been in professional horticulture all my life
47:09this is my garden in doubles in southeast cornwall and we've been here for about 35 years now
47:16camellias give me interest in the garden from late autumn right through to spring when not much
47:22else is happening being evergreen shrubs providing greenery through the winter and form a background
47:28for everything else that's going on they're beautiful look at that
47:38there are over 30 000 varieties of camellias it's about 300 species there are camellias with beautiful
47:46foliage right through to the other extreme where you've got flowers six inches diameter in vivid pink
47:53and everything in between you've got perfume you've got big growers you've got small growers
47:58there's got to be a camellia for everybody i've got a couple of dozen here when i'm showing you
48:04them all i want you to put your hand on your heart and say you don't like any of them
48:10this is uh camellia anette carol which has long been one of my favorites it always performs really
48:16well every year i love the way it opens from a fairly deep pink bud and then fades so at
48:21any one
48:21time you've got a sort of range of different colors across the bush
48:29this is one called uh camellia japonica bob hope as good a deep rich red camellia as you'll get
48:37but a very typical japonica type camellia so it's a fairly solid presence in the garden
48:42this one has been here probably 12 or 15 years and i've kept it around about the same size
48:48by taking a couple of years growth off every second year
48:53when you read gardening books they'll often tell you that camellias don't need pruning but if you
48:59don't prune them they'll grow into small trees and are much too big for a small garden and you can
49:05prune them they respond extremely well to pruning
49:13so if you're wanting a really good starter camellia i've got a variety called debbie
49:18this is a williamsii camellia it's a good rigorous grower has lots and lots of flowers over a long
49:25period of time one of the characteristics of the williamsii is that they generally speaking drop the
49:30flowers before they go brown one of the reasons that they're so popular the japonica varieties
49:36which comprise the majority tend to hold on to the flowers and they go brown on the bush
49:43this one's one called minato no aki bono which means harbor at dawn and this is a luchuensis hybrid
49:51which means that it's beautifully perfumed right beside that towering above it is camellia reticulata
49:58mystique which is very very different a very blousy pretty pink thing
50:05camellia reticulata is the prima donna of the camellia world and this i guess is what most people
50:11would associate with camellias this is what they would be thinking of beauty is in the eyes of the
50:16beholder that to me is beautiful at the other extreme are things like this this is camellia
50:23luchuensis which is a species such as you'd find growing in the world so the flowers are tiny they're
50:29single flowers they're quite sweetly perfumed which the vast majority of camellias are not
50:34and then the third one that i've got here is a variety called koto no kaori which is a hybrid
50:40between
50:41luchuensis and a japonica variety and this to my mind combines the best of both worlds you've got
50:48the color you've got the floriferousness of it plus you've got the perfume
50:57this is my propagator and i took this batch of cuttings very late july early august last year
51:03they've been pretty much undisturbed since then just water them occasionally
51:08and it'll be interesting to see whether they've got any roots on them
51:13ah look at that a little root system oh you're looking at a happy man here terrific
51:20when i take them in the cuttings that i took i cut that off right at the base
51:26wounded it slightly with a very sharp knife i just pair the bark off just down one side which is
51:32just
51:33enough wounding to to stimulate rooting a bit and stuck it in the propagator so that needs to be
51:40potted up now into a little individual pot and lots and lots of new plants
51:53here we've got another species camellia this one's one called trans noquensis with tiny little white
52:00flowers very very strong contrast with this and the debbie behind it the typical what people would
52:06think of as camellias perhaps wouldn't even recognize this as a camellia at all but it has a much more
52:12natural relaxed habit of growth a very thin twiggy upright habit of growth that might be much more
52:18appropriate to a lot of people's more natural type gardeners than the traditional camellia
52:30people who don't like camellias are not amenable to reason are they for heaven's sake
52:35how could you not like camellias make any sense
52:55well it's hard to say this jim but you may notice i don't have a single camellia in this garden
53:01because i'm one of those terrible people that has not yet learnt to love them but maybe it will come
53:07to me but i do love hydrangeas and i've got some here in the writing garden you may notice that
53:14we've
53:14made some changes over winter because when we put the doghouse up last summer we put a path in front
53:20of it and it was a bit narrow so we widened the path to make a terraced area now there
53:26is space to put
53:27big pots i've got two and i'm putting in hydrangea paniculata hydrangeas cope well in light shade
53:36and they need relatively good drainage and the great thing about paniculata they can be pruned hard
53:43every year so therefore you can grow them in a pot without them getting too big first things first it
53:50needs a crock in the bottom it's not so much to improve the drainage but it's to stop the compost
53:56falling out the bottom of the pot i've already mixed up a mixture of grit plenty of our homemade
54:04leaf mold and the rest is peat-free compost
54:18right now that obviously gives lots of room for growth and because this is a great big pot
54:24i do want it to be dramatic this is a hydrangea paniculata kayushu and it carries conical white
54:33flowers june july august a lot of hydrangeas you think of as being september coming into their best
54:40later in summer and into autumn also the critical thing about them is they flower on new wood
54:48right let's take it out the pot
54:52as a rule of thumb when you're planting anything in a pot leave at least an inch for watering perfect
55:02the pot leave at least an inch for the pot leave at least an inch for the pot leave at
55:07least an inch for the pot
55:11now as always particularly at this time of year when you plant anything water it in
55:19give it a good soak as well as watering it and giving it moisture it's moving the soil around the
55:27roots
55:27and i will water this weekly now what you see will carry no flowers at all so these stems will
55:36be bare
55:36the new growth will carry the flowers eventually what i want is a plant that is about seven foot tall
55:45festooned with white conical flowers now i've got some jobs you could do this weekend
56:04buddlia can be pruned now it flowers on new growth so everything that is on the plant now will produce
56:13no flowers so you need to cut hard if you go down to two buds from the base of the
56:20plant
56:21that's about as low as you need go or maybe about two or three foot but be brave and cut
56:29hard
56:37now is a great time to soak cosmos for a really good late summer display
56:43fill a seed tray with peat-free compost and carefully sprinkle the seeds so they're evenly placed across it
56:51cover them over water them and the best way to do this is to dip it in a tray of
56:55water for about 10 minutes
56:57and then put them somewhere warm to germinate and they should be ready to prick out in a few weeks
57:02time
57:07if you've got hyacinths that you've grown for an indoor display over winter
57:12or any other bulbs that you've grown in containers you can plant them out into the garden when they've
57:19finished flowering put the whole thing untidied up leaves stems and all into the soil bury them and let
57:29them die back naturally and they will flower next year
57:39so
57:50so
57:51so
58:03I will take these buddler cuttings and put them through a shredder and then that will go onto
58:10paths and that way everything gets recycled. Well that's it for today. It's been a beautiful spring
58:18day here at Longmeadow and I do hope that you can get out into your garden and enjoy some spring
58:26sunshine and just this sense of the world breaking free from winter and coming alive again. I'll see
58:33you back here at Longmeadow next time. So until then, bye-bye.
58:56you
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